Roberto A. Valdeón’s Research on Journalistic Translation (II)

Journalistic translation research makes the interdisciplinary nature of translation studies perhaps more evident than before. Embedded in news production processes, translation can be better approached by adopting some of the theories (e.g., gatekeeping) and concepts (e.g., framing) from mass communication and journalism studies. In this regard, one notable aspect of Roberto A. Valdeón’s contributions to research on journalistic translation is his attempts to bridge the gap between the disciplines of translation studies and mass communication. In our previous blog entry, we provided an overview of Valdeón’s research on the historical role of translation in news-making processes. Here, we present his discussions on journalistic translation research as the interface between translation and communication studies.

In his article On the use of the term ‘translation’ in journalism studies, Valdeón (2018) investigates how translation in journalistic settings is understood by communication and translation scholars. His research on a corpus consisting of 186 articles, published in journals such as Media History and Journalism Studies, shows that, in communication studies, translating is equal to adding, omitting, summarizing, etc. In contrast, Valdeón’s research also shows that translation scholars have a wider conception of translation, meaning that textual operations such as addition or omission are parts of journalistic translation practices. Seeking to establish a dialogue between translation and journalism studies scholars, Valdeón (2018) argues that translation in news production environments constitutes a “common ground” (p. 266) for scholars belonging to translation and journalism studies, in order to carry out interdisciplinary research on news-making activities. He believes that such a dialogue between the scholars of the two disciplines can contribute to a better conceptualization of the key issues, such as translation, in news production processes.

Furthermore, Valdeón (2015a; 2015b; 2014) employs the concept of framing, which belongs to research on communication and journalism, to describe translation in journalistic environments. The notion of framing refers to selecting and emphasizing some aspects of an event or a situation in order to promote a particular interpretation or evaluation (Entman, 2004, 5). According to Valdeón (2014, 51), framing entails “the adaptation of a text for the target readership, a process that can lead to appropriation of source material.” He suggests that framing replace the notion of trans-editing (Stetting 1989) in journalistic translation research. Indeed, for Valdeón (2014), framing is a more productive concept than trans-editing, since the political, economic, and social implications of news adaptation and appropriation are much more important than emphasizing on language transfers and edition, as the notion of trans-editing suggests (2014, 60).

Valdeón (2015b) also draws upon the concept of framing to call into question the notions of stable and unstable sources, which were suggested by Hernández Guerrero in her book Traducción y periodismo (2009) to draw a distinction between translational approaches to source texts. The stable sources include opinion columns and editorials, as texts “written by recognized and respected authors, whose opinion is valued” (Valdeón’s 2015b, translation of Guerrero 2009, 45). For Hernández Guerrero, most other news genres such as interviews can be considered as unstable sources, in the sense that journalists can bring many changes to the questions that they pose and the answers that they collect in interviews. However, Valdeón (2015b) argues that the situation can be different in audiovisual media. He refers to some examples taken from Euronews, in which interviews are treated as stable sources. He believes that Hernández Guerrero’s (2009) binary opposition “might not be sufficient to account for all the different processes in news production that involve translation […]” (p. 444). Valdeón (2015b) once again emphasizes that framing is a larger and more flexible concept that can cover the ways in which various news genres are treated in the process of journalistic translation.   

Valdeón has also carried out several case studies on the Internet Spanish Services of Anglophone news media, such as BBC Mundo and CNN en Español (2008; 2007a; 2007b; 2005a; 2005b; 2005c), showing, among other things, the influence of ideology on translation in news-making processes. For instance, Valdeón’s (2008) research on Spanish news articles published by BBC Mundo (an Internet news service of the British Broadcasting Corporation) and their source English news texts provided by BBC News reports shows that institutional policies and ideologies influence not only the strategies adopted by “writers/translators” (p. 305), but also the selection of particular news items (or topics) for translation. He concludes that by selecting certain English reports over others and changing the source text information in the process of linguistic transfer the Spanish website “produces a news portal that constructs the world according to Anglophone norms, interests and, most likely, ideological agendas” (p. 323). Whereas comparative analyses of translated news items and their corresponding information sources have often indicated the ideological differences between two different news institutions, this case study by Valdeón is quite interesting in that it indicates how a given news organization may adopt dissimilar editorial policies for its  different linguistic news portals.  

Overall, as can be understood from some of Valdeón’s publications (e.g., Valdeón 2015b; 2014), there is little consensus among translation scholars on how to approach translation in journalistic settings. Indeed, the inseparability of translation from other journalistic tasks in news production processes (Bielsa and Bassnett 2009) has brought complexity to the conceptualization of translation in news contexts. Valdeón has contributed to the creation of common conceptual ground through the concept of framing, which he imported from communication studies to research on journalistic translation. He has also called for a dialogue between scholars belonging to the domains of translation and communication research, so that translation in news institutions can be approached more efficiently. These are praiseworthy endeavours in a domain of enquiry that still needs to develop a solid conceptual framework and methodology for studying translation in the news media.